During his keynote address to the audience at this year’s JavaOne conference last week, Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy took time to introduce a special guest to the stage, saying “there’s kind of a big pink elephant, uh, in the room”, according to a transcript of that portion of the talk Sun filed with the SEC.
The metaphorical elephant was none other than Read the rest of this entry »
“This is one of the toughest emails I’ve ever had to write.” Thus began this morning’s communique from Sun Microsystem’s Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz to his troops. Fear not, though. With Dickensian flourish, Schwartz lifted up the tone of his email with his very next line: “It’s also one of the most hopeful about Sun’s future in the industry.”
Then follows a stirring paean to the 27-year old company whose board has signed off on the plan to be acquired by Oracle for $9.50 a share.
“I do not consider the announcement to be the end of the road, Read the rest of this entry »
Oracle shareholders got a pleasant surprise this week when the Redwood City software giant said it would begin paying its first ever dividend. One shareholder in particular was no doubt especially pleased, though probably not surprised: Oracle founder and chief executive, Larry Ellison, who sits on the board and is also its largest stockholder.
When his company makes its first quarterly dividend payment of 5 cents per share on May 8, Ellison’s payment will amount to Read the rest of this entry »
Oracle placed a bet Wednesday that the future will bring about more regulation and a greater demand for software that increases the efficiency of social service agencies, as well as other “highly regulated” industries. Hmmm, which ones could those be?
Oracle said Wednesday it agreed to buy RuleBurst Holdings, the parent company of Haley Limited, a provider of Read the rest of this entry »
We’ll see if this is a trend that continues, given the klieg lights aimed on executive compensation excesses at the moment, but not only are CEOs at large companies paid more because, well, they are managing large companies, but the rate at which their pay increases rises at a faster rate. That’s the conclusion drawn by The Corporate Library’s CEO pay survey, which examined compensation data in 3,242 U.S. and Canadian companies, making it “one of the most comprehensive CEO pay surveys on the market,” according to The Corporate Library’s press release announcing the availability of the survey results for 75 bucks at its Web site. Read the rest of this entry »
Why is this man smiling? For a second year in a row, Oracle awarded its founder, chief executive and single largest shareholder, Larry Ellison, a mega-option grant good for 7 million shares, according to a regulatory filing Ellison made last week. The option, which vests over four years, has a strike price of $20.73 when it was awarded July 3. Last year’s option grant was valued at $50 million, according to the company’s proxy from September 2007. The value of the most recent grant has yet to be published.
Ellison, who sold 102.5 million Oracle shares worth $2.2 billion in the last year, continues to own 1.15 billion shares, which were worth Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week, we noted that Oracle’s acquisition binge has reshaped the company’s workforce, with almost one-third of employees having joined through those purchases.
It turns out that the executive ranks are also being altered. A proxy filed Wednesday as part of Oracle’s (ticker:ORCL) pending acquisition of Bea Systems (ticker:BEAS) includes a PowerPoint presentation by President Charles Phillips extolling the virtue of the combination.
Among the upsides for BEA employees about to be eaten alive join Oracle is the opportunity, some day, to be running the joint. Just check out this slide that lists current execs who joined the company through acquisitions:
Can we assume that one day that slide will include someone with the CEO title?
We all know that Oracle (ticker:ORCL) has been buying everything with a pulse the last few years. The only thing that would make an Oracle acquisition news again would be some crazy, hostile bid for Microsoft (Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease…).
Still, a proxy filed Friday by the soon-to-be-Oracle-roadkill BEA Systems (ticker:BEAS) reminds us just how far the scorched-earth campaign has gone.
The proxy included a mostly unhelpful Q&A designed to answer (0r not answer) questions that BEA employees might have about what happens to them after the merger. Apparently one of their burning questions is: “How many acquisitions has Oracle completed?”
To which the answer is: More than 40 in the past three years.
Even more interesting: Almost one out of three Oracle employees joined the company through one of those mergers, according to the proxy.
That’s a lot strangers at the company picnic.
Okay, maybe three BEA Systems (BEAS) posts in one week is bordering on the obsessive. But we can’t help ourselves.
The latest tidbit actually comes courtesy Michelle Leder at footnoted.org where she dug through a merger proxy filed by BEA.
You can read Leder’s full post here.
It turns out that Oracle began pursuing BEA back in June. It also happens that BEA had already retained Goldman Sachs in June to pursue its “strategic options.” The first hint of turmoil the public got came in September when investor Carl Icahn disclosed he’d taken a 8.5 percent stake in BEA and favored a sale of the company. Oracle publicly disclosed a $17 per share offer in September.
When Oracle threatened to rescind its offer in late October, BEA’s board decided it would be prepared to talk about a sale if someone offered $21 per share. Things cooled for awhile with sporadic contact between Oracle and BEA while Icahn tried to play matchmaker. Eventually, Icahn helped bring Oracle around to $19.375 per share which brought the sides together to create the deal announced on Jan. 16.
As we noted below, there’s the moola that Chuang made last year. But then there’s what he could make this year — depending on what happens next in the Oracle deal.
Back in January, Oracle (ticker:ORCL) finally coughed up enough money to buy BEA Systems (ticker:BEAS). In the proxy were wrote about previously, the company also disclosed the details of payments that executives would receive under a “change in control.” For that to be triggered, the company has to be sold (check!) AND the exec has to be let go without cause.
In that case, here are following potential pay outs:
An interesting footnote on Chuang’s potential windfall comes under the category of “Perquisites” where it says he gets $418,600 for: “an automobile and driver ($188,000), credit card fees ($2,500), and directed charitable contributions ($6,800).” The severance covers two years. He also gets $50,000 for “Outplacement” services.
Of course, Chuang still owns 9.48 million shares of stock. So with Oracle offering to pay $19.375 per share in cach, that $183.675 million should help Chuang get through a couple of lean months — if he’s let go — while those outplacement folks help him find another job.
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